Upgrade from previous standalone versions (with electronic manual)

LightWave 3D 2018Upgrade from Previous Version combines a state-of-the-art renderer with powerful, intuitive modeling and animation tools included in the product package. Among them, 999 free
cross-platform render nodes, support for Windows and Mac UB 64 and 32-bit operating systems, free technical support and more. LightWave 3D 2018 is a complete 3D
production solution for feature film and television visual effects, broadcast design, print graphics, visualization, game development and Web. LightWave 3D 2018 is
responsible for more artists winning Emmy Awards than any other 3D application.
LightWave 3D 2018 fits seamlessly into large multi-software pipelines - with its powerful interchange tools including FBX, ZBrush GoZ,
COLLADA, Unity Game Engine Support, and Autodesk Geometry Cache. Unlike other software packages, LightWave 3D 2018 offers artists and studios a
complete end-to-end solution right out of the box. Robust polygonal and subdivision surface modeling, unique. Interchangeable layered and nodal
texturing, along with powerful dedicated node material shaders. Powerful animation and rigging tools. Eye-popping volumetric and dynamic effects
systems. A production proven, award-winning GI (Global Illumination) render engine - built in.

Key Features and Benefits

Modeling

LightWave 3D 2018 set the standard for polygonal, subdivision surface modeling a decade before many of the other 3D software packages included even
basic polygonal modeling tools. While others were basing their pipelines on clunky spline-patching workflows, LightWave 3D 2018 artists were quickly and
efficiently modeling with smooth subdivision surfaces interactively.

Surfacing

LightWave 3D 2018 offers two surfacing systems to the artist. A fast, simple to use layer-based system, and a very flexible and powerful nodal system.
Each offer different workflows to suit the artist - for quick results, the layered system is perfect for fast visualization and concept design. For
those who like to dig deep, the nodal system offers ultimate creative freedom.
These systems can be used independently of each other, but unique to LightWave 3D 2018 is the ability to mix them together. You can use the layered surfacing to
achieve results quickly, then choose any of the surface properties to use in a nodal context. This allows you to create extremely complex results
very quickly. The node system also includes easy to use physically accurate material shaders for glass, metal, skin and carpaint, allowing you to
achieve photoreal results quickly.

Rigging

The rigging tools in LightWave 3D 2018 are fast and flexible and again offer artists choices in workflow. LightWave 3D 2018 pioneered a very powerful and easy to set
up automatic joint influence falloff system. This means that you can either choose to setup industry standard weight maps for your characters and
rigged geometry or you can elect to bypass that often time-consuming weight mapping process for quick visualization and concept design animation
workflows by using the automatic joint falloff that is built in to LightWave 3D 2018's animation system. This allows you to quickly and easily swap out geometry in
rigs with zero weight map hassles. But you always have the choice to work with weight maps for that added control when your project requires it.

Animation

LightWave 3D 2018 includes powerful procedural, nodal, and keyframe animation tools. An easy to use and customizable keyframe graph editor allows you
to quickly place and edit keys, time scale, filter, and even manipulate your animations with expressions. Bake your animations per keyframe or with
frame stepping and create motion clips to blend together within the non-linear motion mixer. You can even bake animations to Autodesk geometry cache
or industry standard MDD files to simplify the scene for rendering or for export to other animation packages.
For facial animation LightWave 3D 2018 includes an efficient blend-shape system called Endomorphs which includes all of your morph targets within your base object.
Endomorphs can even be sculpted in ZBrush using the new ZBrush GoZ interchange tools included in LightWave 3D 2018.

Virtual Studio Tools

LightWave 3D 2018's development team is bridging the gap between real and virtual worlds, by bringing together the broadest array in any application of
new devices with which to interact with the set and characters inside LightWave 3D 2018's virtual stage and model shop. Device support ranges from economical mice,
tablets and game system controllers to the sensor arrays and custom cameras and devices used let directors, lighting grips and camera operators walk
a real set and fully capture their data into the virtual set modeled in LightWave 3D 2018. Applications range from propelling your camera on an architectural
flythrough using a 6DoF mouse to puppeteering your characters live on stage using Playstation Move controllers, to recording every camera move shot
for shot for a major motion picture, a technique pioneered on the film Avatar.

Instancing

Instancing allows vast duplication of objects in a scene with very little overhead. With instancing huge 'virtual' polygon counts can be
achieved allowing the artist to populate their scenes with incredible detail, yet retain reasonable render times and memory usage.
While instances can be thought of as clones of the original source objects, they do not need to look identical. They can be randomly scaled,
positioned, rotated and even surfaced entirely differently from the source, allowing for a huge variety of uses.

Effects

Bullet Dynamics - A fast, production-proven, open source physics engine that is used in many high profile, effects-driven films
and real-time game engines. Bullet features 3D rigid body dynamics originally created by Erwin Coumans. LightWave 3D 2018 features the Bullet dynamics engine
directly in Layout so that it can be used with the new Fracture tool in Modeler to create compelling physics-based animation. Things like collapsing
buildings, explosions, and even natural placement of items in a random pattern, would otherwise be difficult to do by hand.

Hypervolex - Allows you to create beautiful smoke, flame, liquids, explosions, nebulas, clouds or any other volumetric effect that
you can imagine. With real-time interactive support within LightWave 3D 2018's VPR, you can experiment and adjust volumetric effects to your heart's content. All
calculated at beautiful, final render quality directly within the LightWave 3D 2018 interface.

Particlefx - A robust, fully-featured particle engine within LightWave 3D 2018. The flexibility of ParticleFX allows a wide variety of looks;
from explosive effects to slow moving smoke-like behaviors. Particle emitters can be stand-alone, or attached to objects to emit particles from their
vertices, polygon normals or surfaces. ParticleFX works seamlessly with HyperVoxels to allow the rendering of particles in any way imaginable.

Fiberfx - If you need hair, fur, feathers, or scales then the FiberFX tools included with LightWave 3D 2018 are just what you are looking for.
Styling and guide creation tools are included so that you can get your fibers looking just as you envision. FiberFX is known for its visual quality
and its consistent look in various different lighting environments. FiberFX includes a beautiful and speedy pixel shader mode and for complex scenes
where you need fibers to be ray traced in reflections or refractions you have the option of a more detailed volumetric mode.

Flocking - LightWave 3D 2018's flocking system is based on 3D computer models of coordinated animal motion, things like flocks of birds, herds
of animals or schools of fish. It can be used with LightWave 3D 2018's instancing system or HyperVoxels. Use the Flock controller, which calculates crowd avoidance
of neighbors, target alignment, and cohesive attractions, to create realistic natural motions, with ease.

Rendering

Network Software Renderer - LightWave 3D 2018 includes one of the world's most amazing render engines at no extra cost. Everything comes down to the
final rendered image and with LightWave 3D 2018 you don't have to buy extra rendering software to setup a complex render and shading pipeline. LightWave 3D 2018 has everything
you need to achieve the most amazing results at the highest quality.

VPR (Viewport Preview Renderer) - LightWave 3D 2018's VPR is an interactive renderer that enables artists to experiment with lighting, textures,
volumetrics, and shading right in the LightWave 3D 2018 viewport. VPR produces results which are similar to a final rendered image and often at a fraction of the
time. VPR also has the advantage of being able to render in any viewport and with any view type, which demonstrates the versatility of the renderer.
VPR provides with instant results and a shockingly fast interactive rendered view of scenes and objects with interactive lighting, nodal shading and
full support for instancing, fibers, and volumetrics.

Linear Colorspace Workflow - Linear Colorspace Workflow is the process of ensuring all scene assets that are fed to the renderer are in
the same colorspace as the render engine. The resulting rendered image also needs profiling for the target display it will be viewed on in order to
look correct. This process can be quite complex in other software. In LightWave 3D 2018, it's as simple as turning it on, and choosing the output profile. LWF in
LightWave supports standard sRGB as well as ICC Color Profiles. You have complete control over which assets are profiled, along with pre-defined
presets to make setup a one-click process.

Stereoscopic Rendering - LightWave 3D 2018 offers all three major stereo camera rigs including parallel, toe-in, and off-axis rig types. Artists have
the ability to dynamically correct for toe-in distortion in the animation pipeline and preview the stereoscopic effect interactively in OpenGL with a
simple click-and-drag convergence point adjustment in the viewport. The interocular and convergence points can be dynamically animated over time to
track stereo changes within a shot.

Scripting

Python is an industry standard programming language prevalent in most CG pipelines. The inclusion of Python in LightWave 3D 2018 allows even further
integration into studio pipelines, as those familiar with Python can quickly begin writing tools for LightWave 3D 2018.

Interchange

LightWave 3D 2018 has extremely robust interchange tools tested and production-proven by top Hollywood studios. This allows easy dataflow back and
forth between LightWave 3D 2018 and the other major 3D animation and effects software packages. LightWave 3D 2018 offers a complete pipeline from model to render but the sky is
the limit with your pipeline setup, and can solve problems and offer unique solutions for any mixed software pipeline. For example, rig and animate
in Maya and then export your geometry cache files directly into LightWave 3D 2018 where you can build your environments, add effects, and then render the
entire project in LightWave 3D 2018. Or simply model and texture your geometry in LightWave 3D 2018 and export via FBX to any major package. Another example would be quickly
rigging in LightWave 3D 2018 and exporting the rig to Motionbuilder where you can apply motion capture files and then import the final character performance
into Maya or 3ds Max. It's your pipeline with your unique needs. LightWave 3D 2018 can be a powerful tool to solve a large number of production problems and
help streamline your project.

ASCII Text-Based Scene Files and Object Referencing

LightWave 3D 2018 has had a very efficient and robust ASCII based scene file format from the very beginning. This production-proven text-based scene
file format set the standard which other professional software packages have eventually followed. Because of this simple, well thought out ASCII
scene file format and the way that LightWave 3D 2018 references separate object files you never run the risk of a large all inclusive binary scene file corrupting
your assets. Additionally, LightWave 3D 2018's text-based scene file format allows for amazing flexibility and customization within complex pipelines when coupled
with the powerful Python scripting language. The way that LightWave 3D 2018 references separate object files is also extremely powerful and flexible in a pipeline.
This means that the modeling team can be updating the object files as the design progresses and those objects are instantly updated across all scenes
in the production. Or you can try different looks on your character rigs with a simple object replace with none of hassles that you might encounter
in other software packages.

LightWave 3D 2018 — Upgrade from Previous Version will be be digitally delivered to you. Within 1 or 2 working days from your purchase you will receive an e-mail with your Licensing Information and instructions on how to download and activate the software.

LightWave 3D 2018 — Upgrade from Previous Version will be delivered digitally, no Sales Tax will be collected by Novedge.